Thanks, the most common animal i've put up is what you see there. So they probably look alot better then a coon would! But anyways, yes I use #1 wire stretchers for muskrat. I leave a bit of the tail on them to hook the stretcher clips too. I use forming board for every other species.

I have a few non producing power snares set, a couple mink sets and 2 beaver sets out right now.

On my drowning set rat traps it's the full length of chain that comes with the trap, plus about 10" of wire. The wire is wrapped up about 2 inches worth to the stake and about an inch worth to the trap chain.

Unfortuantly were still stuck with basically no snow here in Manitoba. We're having some cold weather how ever which is helping to freeze up the ice. I'm told that the ice fisherman are laying nets 2 1/2 miles out on Lake Manitoba.Here was the temperature December 4, around 10:00 pm.

Don't have much for pictures this time around. But if the weather stays nice as it has I will set a few dozen rat houses on Sunday. This Saturday (tomorrow) is the open house at NAFA in Winnipeg. So my day will consist of talking with other trappers and watching demo's to add to my knowledge of trapping and fur handling (sounds pretty terrible eh!)

The beaver lodge in which I caught this beaver in was well.... uh. For lack of a better explanation the farmer was nice enough to grab my trap before COMPLETELY leveling the lodge with the ice. . . How ever he let me in on where another good sized house was, which I will be setting some traps in soon.

Here's the other lodge with the feed pile out front. The lodge it's self is only about 2 feet off the edge of this dug outs side. :

More Beavers... took a walk out on another slough the other day and looked at another nice beaver house from a distance. Hope the photo worked out well for here. someone else also tried snowmobiling on this slough already and it didn't work so well for them.Lodge is the small dark thing right below the clump of tree's. Looks small from here but it's quite large lodge in reality.

Was out walking around and found this mink trail through the reeds on a frozen up beaver run.

As I said not alot of pictures this week and not alot of stuff to tell you, unless for some odd reason your wanting to know that my neighbor is my new bus driver

Will take a bunch of pictures Sunday, and i'm not sure if I can post pictures from the NAFA open house tomorrow or not. Last year there was a lock on the picture taking deal.

Well here's the pictures I am able to post from the 7th Annual NAFA open house today.

The day included pelting demonstrations, aswell as using Ram Power Snares for raccoon, fisher and coyote. Youth muskrat skinning demonstrations went on nearly all day with Myself and Another Man. There was also a relatively detailed presentation on Wolf Trapping and Predator Calling from two different people. Here's a picture from the wolf demo showing how he makes his dirt hole sets using 750s.

and a picture from the Power Snare demos (top is coyote bottom is fisher and coon)

a photo of a youth skinning a rat (couldn't show many of this because the face of them is in most of them and I don't have full permission to post the kids. So here's one I cropped.

and some beaver stretching using an Electric Air Nailer.

and to give you one last picture for this post:

You Know Your a Redneck When (your car has these)

I'll be going out tomorrow to set some muskrat traps and a beaver set or two. Will take some good pictures for you all.

Good see some pictures. I called Dave today when you guys were chowing down on lunch (10:30 my time) Dave was really pleased with the turn out, demonstration program, and the enthusiasm of the group. Bet those kids had fun with the muskrats, that would be one of the highlights for sure.

Where is the snow? Let's make those sets realistic. Thanks for helping the young guys!

The snow? haha yea right. The most snow we have is about 8" right by Lake Manitoba! The snow is still holding off. It's a bit irratating actually, your right. None of these set are realistic. I'm currently trapping like a Southerner.

Well like I said, went out and set a few traps today. How ever today was a little rougher then usual... if your interested keep reading.

Got out there today, and figured i'd follow the mink trail through the reeds, see if I could find an open hole to set by. So I tootled around all the little curves and found where the mink had gone around by a rat house tore in to the rat house and then 30 feet further found where he was snacking on a pool if minnows:

I will add video yet of that open hole showing where the mink had chewed up the fish. But continuing on, heres the hole in the side of the rat house:

I put in a couple sets for mink, which you will see next entry (hopefully with a catch) and then went on to set for muskrats. For those of you that don't know, here's the inside dome of an average sized rat house:

and inside a push up (I basically cut the whole top off the ice becaue the inside is all water)

Walked over to this here beaver house and had a look at the runs and feed bed:

So the rough part of the trip can be summed up in these short word: Bloody Fingers, Sharp Knives, Barbed Wire Fence and a Hurt Knee.

While I was making a rat set, the stopper on my pocket knife gave out, slid around and sliced my finger up pretty good. Enough to nauseate me enough to puke. So back to the vehicle we went to break out the First Aid kit... first time i've had to use it on the trapline, so I guess I owe it to the mentors that have taught me who handed them out at Trapper Workshops here.

So after I was all bundled up, he climbed over a barbed wire fence, barb caught his boot laces and he fell over and seriously damaged his left knee. My trapping partner is also my bus driver, so his response to his own fall was as follows: Son of a that hurt! Your just lucky our bus isn't a standard!

Well it's December 18th and the Christmas tree is up! Which is one load off of the shoulders. Went out today and had a look at a 2 armed lake on my property. The definition of lake in my area is a swamp with an open body of water. Just to let you know ahead of time. Located 7 beaver lodges on the 2 arms and all 7 were dead due to low water. Here's one with a furry creature nesting inside. Right at the entrance the creature is urinating often. Whats your best guess as to what it is?

Then went over to another swamp to these two very active lodges. During the start of freeze up there was 5 or 6 beaver here at once. Here's the two of them together.

The smaller house with the feed bed:

Here you can see blood in the snow. It's from a mink going in the hole and bringing up minnows and eating them there.

Then I took the bike around through a poachers brush trail, which lead up to a long beaver dam, in the middle of the trail was dam over flow and a few fallen trees. So that stopped all poaching in there, so I scaled the dam around a circle. And found the lodge. I noticed multiple open mink holes along side the dam. Here's one.

but before getting to lodge, I decided to take a better look at this mink hole, so I paced down the dam 10 or 15 feet and tried to walk across and found that the dam spillage was somewhere below the ice line very quickly. Because between the animals swimming through and the water running there was only about a half inch of ice. Needless to say, curiosity drown the trapper:

once I dried off in the snow. I walked towards the house. Fairly large lodge and a good feed pile.

so I guess the last picture is a tad depressing. Even out here in the brambles, people STILL manage to litter. Here's 3 ~ 50 gallon oil drums frozen in to the ice on this pond.